Lilac Solutions developed a cost-effective and more environmentally friendly process for mining lithium.
Mining lithium for electric cars and energy storage comes at an environmental cost. In remote salt flats in Chile, where briny groundwater is pumped into huge evaporation ponds, extracting a single ton of lithium can use more than half a million gallons of water. A different process requires blasting through rocks in an open pit mine, using large amounts of both water and energy and destroying landscapes.
A startup called Lilac Solutions is taking a different approach: It pumps brine over reusable ceramic beads that are designed to capture lithium. Then the brine can be sent back underground or back into a saline lake. “The groundwater remains unchanged,” says CEO Raef Sully. The beads are washed to extract the lithium, and the process starts over again.